Smooth Jazz

My Portal Secret Santa Gift for Sop ([link]).
His request was for a human Announcer, and I gladly fulfilled that request.

Some explanation behind my conceptualization:

K, first of all, the pallet: All I had at first was the text color they presented in the captions, but then I realized the color, for some /odd/ reason matched the pallet of the room you wake up in. Thus, I made a pallet of those colors, night and day, and used them for the design! His skin tone is the closest match to the original text color out of everything.

Next I'll explain the man himself: This is something that would have gone completely under my radar if I hadn't gotten this prompt, and that would have been the worst shame in the world because… do you know who voices the Announcer?

Joe Romersa. The dude who sang my favorite Silent Hill songs, a game series I have been in love with all my life. The Silent Hill Soundtrack was the first thing that ever graced my ipod, and the ones where he sings have made a special place in my heart. I love that dude, and I love his voice, so it was hard not to integrate him.

After I used his body type and his face, I noticed the dude was way into sunglasses and barets.

Now lemme explain the room: There is a lot of stuff happening with the Announcer’s audio in the game: hitches, jazz music, changing pitch, beeps. I thought maybe, in the human version, he’d be stowed away somewhere in some hidden room, controlling the audio and sound of the facility. Kinda like the “little man behind the curtain” WOZ deal. Plus, he /is/ called the “Announcer”; hard not to think “radio announcer”. eh?

I found out what old recording studio mics looked like, too (1960’s maybe). I find it really interesting that they were given names like “Saturn” and “Halo”. “Aperture”, in all it’s glorious roundness, fit nicely with theme, methinks.

fyi, my nickname for the Announcer is "Mike", for both the blatant pun, aaaaand because his voice actor's middle name is Mike.